Electric heating – Heating devices – Tool or instrument
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-26
2001-02-20
Jeffery, John A. (Department: 3742)
Electric heating
Heating devices
Tool or instrument
C219S227000, C132S224000, C294S099200, C294S016000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06191387
ABSTRACT:
SUBJECT OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to hairdressing tongs for straightening/styling.
TECHNICAL BACKGROUND
Hairdressing tongs which consist of two heating pads and can be equipped with a water reservoir for simultaneous emission of steam have already been offered on the market. The pads, fixed to the end of two handle arms connected by a pivot and a spring, hold the two arms apart from one another in the rest position.
By acting on the handle using the hand, it is possible, starting from a position of maximum opening, to move the two arms, and therefore the pads which are integral therewith, towards one another through a variable acute angle to, at the end of travel, bring the pads into contact and in principle into a parallel position.
Locks of hair are gripped between the heating pads and the hair can thus be smoothed by making it slide between the hot pads, if necessary with an emission of steam obtained from water originating from a reservoir incorporated in the support of one heating pad, in contact with which the water evaporates.
This type of angular-opening tongs has the fundamental disadvantage that it cannot easily be adapted to different types of hair and in particular, with a constant lock thickness, that it acts on the gripped hair on one side more than the other. In fact, in the case of arms articulated about a common axis, the angle between the pads varies constantly according to the separation. The pads therefore follow only imperfectly the shape of the locks of hair. This device also does not allow the user to achieve all the desired shaping effects.
THE AIM OF THE INVENTION
The aim of the present invention is to avoid the abovementioned disadvantages and in particular it seeks to make it possible for the two arms constituting the handle to be opened otherwise than solely angularly.
In particular, the aim is to provide hairdressing tongs which allow the user to modify the gripping effect according to the hairdressing effects it is desired to achieve.
CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF THE INVENTION
The hairdressing tongs according to the invention comprise, in a conventional manner, heating pads fixed to the end of two arms of a handle. The two arms are, however, mounted in a floating manner in the sense that a central element of the handle serves as a guide for these arms which can thus be moved transversely from a completely contracted position, the hand being closed and the two heating pads being brought into complete contact, to a position of maximum separation, bringing the arms into a position of contact with the stops of the central element, spring elements maintaining this maximum separation in the absence of action on the arms of the handle, that is to say in the rest position.
By holding, with the hand, the rear face of the arms in a completely pushed-in position and by pushing the front face of these arms in gradually, the tongs are closed in the conventional, that is to say angular, manner. However, it is possible to press in an identical manner on the front and rear faces of the arms of the handle, in this case closing the pads in a parallel manner and perfectly in contact with the entire lock of hair. By accentuating the pressure towards the front, the pads move towards one another at the tip, which makes it possible, for example, to deal accurately with very short hair or to make adjustments.
This method of articulation makes it possible to transmit all the dexterity of the user to the pads.
Depending on whether the pressure is balanced on the front or the rear of the handle, or whether the pressure is accentuated towards the front or towards the rear, the pads move towards one another in a parallel manner or favouring contact towards the front or the rear. They can thus follow perfectly the shape of the lock of hair whatever the thickness and regularity of the latter.
Advantageously, the arms of the handle have the straps of half-shells surrounding the central handle element.
The central handle element is perforated by two openings, one at the front and the other at the rear, which allow the passage of a spring working under compression. Each spring pushes the two arms away from one another until contact is made with a stop on the central element. Preferable, a stud or other fixing element retains the end of the spring in place.
Various accessories which facilitate the hairdressing operation can be incorporated in the tongs which have just been described as will emerge from the description below of a preferred embodiment of the invention.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1033122 (1912-07-01), Schwartz
patent: 1455696 (1923-05-01), Wright
patent: 1643456 (1927-09-01), James
patent: 1852269 (1932-04-01), Siers
patent: 3304111 (1967-02-01), Kauh et al.
patent: 3703042 (1972-11-01), Smith
patent: 386644 (1922-02-01), None
patent: 2455114 (1976-05-01), None
patent: 325570 (1936-06-01), None
Conair Corporation
Jeffery John A.
Ohlandt Greeley Ruggiero & Perle
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